Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent

The group of Jews in today’s Gospel are guilty of using Moses as an excuse to reject Jesus. They hide behind the prescripts of the Old Law because they are unable or unwilling to accept Jesus as the new and greater Moses. In response, Jesus acknowledges the limitations of self-testimony, choosing instead to invoke three distinct witnesses that attest to the veracity of His claims.
First, he invokes John the Baptist. In doing so, He soundly criticizes the Jews who were happy enough to listen to John and to “rejoice in his light” for a while, and yet they failed to take seriously his message about the coming of Christ.
Secondly, he invokes the Father and His works, including the various miracles that Jesus has already performed. Here Jesus offers a chilling warning: “His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen; . . . for you do not believe him whom he has sent” (John 5:37–38). Imagine somebody standing up today and telling all the bishops of the Church that they have never heard or seen God!
Yet Jesus can offer this critique without exaggeration because he knows that the Jews to whom he is speaking are no longer worshippers of the true God, but instead they worship merely their own faulty image of God. They have put God in such a small box that they are unable to recognize Him even when He is standing in front of them.
Finally, Jesus invokes the Scriptures. Just as Moses in the first reading mediated on behalf of God’s chosen people, so now Jesus will lay down His life on behalf of all men. Interestingly, the root Greek word for “witness” and “testimony” is martus, from which we derive the English word “martyr.”
This serves as a reminder that in addition to the three lines of witness that Jesus invokes in today’s Gospel, we, too, are called to testify to the truth of His claims by the way we live our lives.

Reference:

Journey Through Lent: Reflections on the Daily Mass Readings by Clement Harrold